When Arthur Conan Doyle was a lonely 7-year-old schoolboy at pre-prep Newington Academy in Edinburgh, a French emigre named Eugene Chantrelle was engaged there to teach Modern Languages. A few years later, Chantrelle would be hanged for the particularly grisly murder of his wife, beginning Doyle's own association with some of the bloodiest crimes of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

This early link between actual crime and the greatest detective story writer of all time is one of many fascinating and sometimes chilling connections. Using freshly available evidence and eyewitness testimony, Christopher Sandford follows these links and draws out the connections between Doyle's literary output and true crime in a pattern that will enthral and surprise the legions of Sherlock Holmes fans. In a sense, Doyle wanted to be Sherlock - to be a man who could bring order and justice to a terrible world.